15 Warning Signs of Fraudulent Essay Writing Services (and how to avoid them)

As evidence shows, more and more students are becoming victims of dishonest essay writing services that originate from Ukraine and other non-English speaking countries. It makes me wonder - how do students actually find these services and what can be done to protect them?

After doing some detailed research, I came to the following conclusions that may help students avoid scam traps and other tricky deals.

Fraudulent Essay Sites:

1. Create dozens (sometimes hundreds) of websites under different web addresses. At first sight they all look different, but when a student fills out the order form, his/her request ends up in the same place, ie. is available to be taken by the same group of writers. In result, when student was scammed by EssaySite-A.com he/she may think that ordering from EssaySite-B.com will bring different results. That's the first and the most common mistake.

2. Create several fake "essay review" websites that rank their own websites above... their other websites. All these "reviews" and "rankings" are 100% fabricated and written by mostly ESL writers they predominantly work with. Reading of those "reviews" is a complete waste of time.

3. Have numerous fake "departments" (eg. "Quality Assurance Department," "Billing Department," "Human Resources Department" etc.) to give a false impression that they have a civilized structure of a serious organization. In reality, however, most decisions are being made by a single "Director" who usually runs such a "company" from a local pub. Just like in the former Soviet Union, these people like using formal organizational names to make up the lack of real achievements.

4. Hire Internet criminals (also based in a third-word country) to hack, compromise, and steal from government, university, and business websites. Some students may find links to their sites on such compromised websites mistakenly thinking they are endorsed by them.

5. Work with Internet criminals to get fake followers and endorsements on social media sites like Facebook, Google Plus, or Twitter. That is, however, a relevant and easy to spot signal for potential buyers because the rule is simple: If an essay service has more than several dozens of followers or endorsements, it means (with 95% accuracy) that the service is run from a third-world country which specialize in hacking social media platforms for unmerited financial gain.

6. Do not post their real mailing address on their websites any more (thanks to the long-term member of this forum who exposed their fake addresses in the past). They may use fake postal addresses (usually from London or other big cities). Internet-generated phone numbers or emails are the only ways to contact them because a typical customer will not be able to determine that the person answering the phone or email is in fact located in Ukraine (not in the US, UK, or Australia).

7. Treat freelance writers like their own employees (not as independent contractors). Not only it is unethical and immoral, but also illegal in civilized countries.

If there are more signs of essay research scam websites, your comments are welcome. Students have the right to protect themselves from unwanted risks and commercial exploitations.

8. Offer their own plagiarism checker. Avoid any site that encourages you to "scan," "submit," or "check" your paper for plagiarism. They will-at some point in the future-illegally sell, digitize, and/or publish your paper (in whole or in part), despite their false assurances to the contrary.

9. Offers "progressive delivery." (This is a common gimmick of Ukrainian sites.)

10. Advertises prices that start lower than $15 per page. (Such low prices make it virtually impossible for the company to afford to hire qualified, American writers, despite the company's false, public claims to "only hire native English-speaking writers.")

11. Advertises "Authorize.net" as its payment processor. (There is nothing wrong with Authorize.net, in and of itself. However, Authorize.net is popular with many of the fraudulent, foreign companies because it enables the fraudsters to receive payments offshore, while maintaining the deceptive facade of an "American" company.)

12. Advertise that the site/company has been online "Since 1997." That is completely false. Check the site's age in whois. You can also check the company's corporate records. You will certainly discover that the company is lying about both the age of its site(s) AND the age of the company itself (if a company exists at all).

13. Offer an "Affiliate Program." (This method of scam perpetuation is popular with fraudulent, Ukrainian sites/companies because it enables them to spread their scam via third parties without directly taking on additional risk themselves.)

14. Display false statistics related to their "Site Activity" (including fabricated "Satisfied Customers" rates).

15. Guarantee "100% Security and Privacy" (failing to mention they don't operate under the jurisdiction of lawful authorities).

This thread should be STICKY.

No. Those 'warnings' are just regurgitated versions of previous posts. Really, they mean nothing. If at this point in time a student cannot distinguish between scam A and scam B, he ought to be scammed. Big time. After all, he is trying to scam his university. It's the karma thing. I have previously explained ways that students can avoid scams. If they can't listen to my advice, they are the perfect clients for scammers.

Seriously? You post this on essayscam.org and that doesn't ring a bell of warning (to look like a total idiot) in your brain?


Then tell the mod to sticky it, much better solution than simply slandering somebody else (despite the obvious joy you and w2b take in mutual provocations)


Your self-righteousness is appalling, and interestingly amusing at the same time. It is also indication of a severe Narcissistic personality disorder. You really ought to go and check that.

Get your facts straight, please. I contribute valuable posts; she stalks. The nutcase has been stalking and harassing me for many YEARS because I uncovered her scams that eventually led to the complete dissolution of her entire operation and closure of her sites. Now, she runs a DOG-WALKING business in Australia.

Although I don't engage in the type of discourse that appears to be usual here, I do understand the difference between you two. If I didn't, I would've approached the topic differently.

What she does is really not my concern, nor do I really care. The only difference being,* you actually contribute useful information (which saved my skin several times - even before I was registered), and she simply talks crap.

My facts are straight. Thanks

hey guy pelase be aware of myassignmenthelp.net[DND*]....its a big fraund...they ddidnt even do my assignment forget money back :(

Another thing to look out for is their "chat now" feature. If their representative is not able to write a sentence in proper English, chances are that the writers can't do it either...

Also, if they offer you an "exclusive" offer when you start questioning specific things (policy on plagiarism, reselling essays etc), move on

DIY steps for inspecting the 'legitimacy' of any particular writing service:

- Check the essay writing website's WHOIS information. You can do that by going to any "WHOIS lookup" website. WHOIS gives the mandatory identification information the owner of the website provides during registration of the website.

- Query the site address on Alexa.com. Demographics of the visitors of the website will help you in your judgement. A reasonable service would have a fair amount of visitors from a developed country. The Alexa rank is a measure of the popularity of the website.

- All UK-registered companies are listed on the Companies House website (companieshouse.gov.uk/info). If a service claims to be based in the UK, query its Company Number or Name on the aforementioned website to find out if it is registered.

Gents some o fus are in a dire situation can somebody come out nicely, indicating to a few of us who are possibly trying to engage an organisation to help us write an assignmernt. So much help has been given by a few good friends on this forum, I hope its not the owners of the same illegit organisations. But anyways if there is anyone who has had some exellent work done for him\her by a reliable writer please quickly hint that site to us wether they are in India, Africa, Bosnia, Iraqi, Nigeria if they are reliable and have a good track record please bring them out.

We'll get right on that.

Buying essays online IMHO is a tricky one. It's trial and error. I;ve been scammed many times before I found a legitimate and reliable writing services online. So i'm sticking with them until graduation or maybe even during my post-grad studies.

Littlemisssurfer, take a hike, you spamming piece of trash.

By the way, your cheap, fly-by-night site (smart-writer) is complete garbage.

All three of those "steps" are completely useless.

Okay.

Next people when ask if site legit you post WHOIS as proof for location or name. Completely useless.

Also, companies do claim to have been around for a long time; but I have never seen a claim about the registration of a particular domain name.

Anyway, if you're trying to help the visitors, that's fine.

That is merely one piece of evidence that I use in determining whether or not a site is fraudulent. You know that quite well.


1. "12"
2. Read my response to stupid4life
3. I was using the Whois data that you quoted to prove AGE, not ownership.

True that, Mrs. Whois.
You forgot to mention that you also generously use intimidation, threats, hallucinations, naivety, witchcraft, schizophrenia, idiocy, and tens of other methods to determine which site is fraudulent or not.

As I would always advice students, we as writers we are here to help and not to steal. If someone steals from you, please inform other students not fall under such hands. It is always barbaric for experienced and qualified writer to defraud people of their money.

It's equally barbaric for you to portray yourself as a person capable of writing in fluent English.

Thank you for the tips! I actually noticed all of them were true o-o

I do get that most of these sites are not UK or US based companies however some of them have really good writers on board and have ample knowledge about the subjects. So please before declaring a site as a scam I think it is always better to ask for a free sample of work. Sites who provide free outlines and samples are usually trustworthy

Translation = "WB revealed that my site is Pakistani."

It really creates awareness about students are becoming victims of dishonest essay writing services. By detecting those student could be more careful about this. There are some good site also. You could have a essay writing services reviews from here.

Totally agree to those points now~ Thanks

Thanks for the tips. All tips are true. Its save students from becoming victim.

God damn, there are so many fake sites like that now. $9-18 per page is quite tasty for a "not so well paid" student like me. The only thing left to do is study as hard as you can and write your own papers. What's the point of buying them from someone else? You're not learning anything from that. That's a waste of money, in my opinion.

I think my post would go here.
I just wanted to talk of scams with essaywriters advertising on such sites as Kijiji.
I shouldn't have used the person I did because I didn't get my money back and I happened on a strange scam of using other students credentials.

I may be preaching to the converted but this surprised me. There are people saying they write essays edit etc, with photos you assume are of them. Often if you google their name and the university they say they've gone to you can find a connection. I used two different fake emails (meaning not my real name) and sent emails to two different people - I thought. One said he was a PhD student at a specific school and had won writing awards. I only needed him to proof read a document, and ended up not going with his services.I googled his name and school and sure enough his name (but no photo) was linked to the university and the awards he said he had were legit. I assumed if he put a photo of himself on Kijijii then it must be the same guy.

The other guy said he had been an undergrad and a TA, He could get to work right away on a book report for me. He asked for 150 and I gave it to him. He asked all the right questions, gave a time frame, and I trusted him. Not 24 hours before he was to give it to me he said he needed more money. I said no and he didn't finish it. He didn't give me back my money either. He said it was a big job. A real student can judge their time better and a professional doesn't haggle like that. I didn't want a report that would probably be a piece of garbage given the unprofessionalism of this person.

Here's what is odd, looking through our correspondence, at one point he used my other name - from the other email that I used to corresponde ith the PhD student who was going to do some other work for me. It was a dead give away that the two writers were one person.

After a few days of finishing my essays myself, which I really didn't want to do so last minute, I was able to get an email to the PhD department asking them to forward my email to the PhD student (the guy who's services I never used), where I asked if he was the Kijiji writer using his name and credentials. He emailed me back and said "trust me, that is not me"

I assume the reason the fake students using the photos is to say they haven't used someone else's credentials if the photo is of someone else.

Anyway that was my experience. If you are a PhD or Master's student I would advise not leaving you photo blank on your school profile or better yet put up an avatar that says "not a writer". Some students may advertise with their photo that they do essay writing, but not while their still in school I'd assume.

I used a regular writing service that couldn't deliver on time and said they're refunding me (fingers crossed) so if I had to go with a writer again I'd use an online service over these freelance writers.

All of these warnings are going to fall on deaf ears with the students because of the one reason that they fall for the fraudulent writing services and that is, the price. They fall for the empty promises and deceive themselves into thinking that they are hiring a legitimate service because they choose to ignore the obvious warning signs like the questionable phone numbers and other methods of contact. There are even times when no phone numbers are given and only social media contact, such as Facebook Messenger is given as a contact point. That alone should be a fiery red flag to be cautious when dealing with the people behind the website. No self respecting business would have only one point of contact, specially on social media. Neither would they call a Skype phone number an office contact number. When faced with these two particular contact methods, it should be more than obvious that the site is running a scam. Like I said though, if the student opts to turn a blind eye to the warning signs, he will find himself dealing with all the problems that come out of contracting a fraudulent writing service.

Just yesterday, I took two projects from a new client AFTER she'd already paid 50% to someone she found on Reddit who told her to issue payment to a PayPal account with an entirely different email from the one he'd been using to communicate with her. She only did her research about how to find a legit writer afterwards.

Sadly, that's far to common. Students, and all other customers, should do their due diligence beforehand to avoid scams.

thanks for this valuable tips, Ifound some of them really true.

I have also heard of instances when the writers themselves are fraudulent. Conning the students whom they meet by freelance job platforms and promising the moon and the stars and not even delivering a glass of water to the client by the time the deadline comes around. These writers are often without a website to point to as a method of at least getting to know the writer and the type of work that is done by this person. Neither does the writer offer any other form of contact except via email. If a writer does not have any social media form of contact such as Messenger, Vibr, or WhatsApp, you tend to wonder why the writer won't talk to you. Is it because of the accent that will make the client hit the end call button even before the negotiations start? I think that this discussion should be expanded to fraudulent writer signs as well.

I don't have any of that crap simply because I don't "do" social media...no FB, IG, not a tweeter...barely even use a cell phone, and it's my wife's old Razzor...nobody has the number besides her and there's no data in it because it's nothing to me but a road "pay phone." At home, it's always off and doesn't take messages because I still use a hardline. The only time I ever video-conferenced in any form was working for the federal government.


Actually, there's almost never been any reason justifying a phone call with a client, but I've always offered to talk if (and only if) what the client wanted was to verify that I'm in NYC (212 hardline) and that I have no foreign accent (and that I speak the way I write). Lately, I offered to have a couple of them call me because it's just faster than typing out how I handle projects that require a "draft" and a final essay subsequently. Generally, I don't like discussing anything substantive about projects because I want all communications in written form to prevent any possible miscommunications that can't be definitively resolved factually.

This is a necessary input in this old discussion. It should be noted that you need to consistently have proof that particular transactions are to be arranged a certain way. When things are in written format, it would be beneficial for the writer to ensure that they're protected. This should be a consistent practice all throughout.

Students learn by experience. Just like everything else, learning how to hire a writer has a learning curve. The more mistakes they make, which are sometimes individualized experiences, the more they learn how to vet the writer or company. There is no one single method of avoiding these fraudulent websites. It's always based on several encounters, both positive and negative. The negative experiences are lessons learned and the positive experiences, are signs to look for in a good writer or company. The listing above offers good advice, but the students won't always go through all the required investigations when their paper is on a deadline. In this instance, experience will always be the best teacher.

@Cite
true!